Friday, June 6, 2014

Um, we did this

Humans, Not Climate Change, To Blame For Ice Age Animal Extinction

Our last glacial period lasted from
about 115,000-12,500 years ago. By the end, 177 large mammal species had
gone extinct. There has been considerable debate over the last half
century regarding what caused the loss of these animals, including
saber-tooth cats, mastadons, and giant sloths. While many have argued
that these animals simply weren’t able to adapt to the warmer climate,
others blame human activity. A new study led by Jens-Christian Svenning
of Aarhus University has strongly suggested that humans are squarely
responsible for the disappearance of megafauna during the last 100,000
years. The results have been published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

For this study, the researchers focused on megafauna, which is
categorized as animals weighing at least 10 kg (22 lbs) that lived in
the last 132,000 years. They also identified the regions where these
animals lived, comparing the data with climate and human activity. While
there are invariably going to be animals lost after a great climate
change such as the ending of an ice age, the loss of megafauna that
followed the most recent glacial event is an anomaly when compared to
the ending of other ice ages.

“Our results strongly underline the fact that human expansion
throughout the world has meant an enormous loss of large animals,”
co-author Søren Faurby said in a press release.